Cycling around the U: 13 months

Over the past thirteen months, I've been using a Garmin to track where I've been cycling. No surprise that I'm focused mostly around the university...

Colors range chronologically from red (July 2010) to yellow/orange (August 2011).

1204 Granger

A reader requested this one, and I happened to be cycling by that location a little while ago, so...

What people call streams... or brooks... or runs... or something else

If you've done work in rivers in the US, you will quickly learn that names for those flowing bodies of water smaller than a "river" are given different names in different places in the country. Some EFL individuals may think that there is a hierarchical nature to the relationship between a "stream", a "brook", a "run", a "wash", etc. Often, though, there isn't; all these things are similar to each other in that they all mean "a small river" or something akin to that. Looking at the Flowing Data website today, I saw a link to a map by Derek Watkins that lays out the geographic distribution of the various toponyms that describe "small rivers" around the US.

Just to show how similar the definitions for many of these different words are, I present their (relevant) definitions [and etymologies], taken from dictionary.com.

• Branch: a tributary stream or any stream that is not a large river or a bayou; Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S. branch water.  [1250–1300; Middle English bra (u) nche < Anglo-French; Old French branche &lt; Late Latin branca paw, of uncertain origin]

• Run: a small stream; brook; rivulet. [before 900; (v.) Middle English rinnen, rennen, partly < Old Norse rinna, renna, partly continuing Old English rinnan; cognate with German rinnen; form run orig. past participle, later extended to present tense; (noun and adj.) derivative of the v.]

• Fork: a principal tributary of a river. [before 1000; Middle English forke, Old English forca &lt; Latin furca fork, gallows, yoke]

• Brook: a small, natural stream of fresh water. [before 900; Middle English; Old English brōc stream; cognate with Dutch broek, German Bruch marsh]

• Kill: (US) a channel, stream, or river (chiefly as part of place names) [C17: from Middle Dutch kille; compare Old Norse kīll small bay, creek]

• Stream: a body of water flowing in a channel or watercourse, as a river, rivulet, or brook. [before 900; (noun) Middle English streem, Old English strēam; cognate with German Strom, Old Norse straumr; akin to Greek rheîn to flow (see rheum); (v.) Middle English streamen, derivative of the noun]

• Bayou: a marshy arm, inlet, or outlet of a lake, river, etc., usually sluggish or stagnant; any of various other often boggy and slow-moving or still bodies of water. [1710–20, Americanism < Louisiana French, said to be &lt; Choctaw bayuk river forming part of a delta]

• Swamp: a tract of wet, spongy land, often having a growth of certain types of trees and other vegetation, but unfit for cultivation. [1615–25; < Dutch zwamp creek, fen; akin to sump and to Middle Low German swamp, Old Norse svǫppr sponge]

• Slough: an area of soft, muddy ground; swamp or swamplike region; Also, slew, slue. Northern U.S. and Canadian. a marshy or reedy pool, pond, inlet, backwater, or the like. [before 900; Middle English; Old English slōh; cognate with Middle Low German slōch, Middle High German sluoche ditch]

• Wash: a tract of land washed by the action of the sea or a river; a marsh, fen, or bog; a small stream or shallow pool; a shallow arm of the sea or a shallow part of a river; a depression or channel formed by flowing water; Also called dry wash. Western U.S. the dry bed of an intermittent stream. [before 900; Middle English washen (v.), Old English wascan (cognate with Dutch wasschen, German waschen, Old Norse vaska) < Germanic *watskan, equivalent to *wat- (root of water) + *-sk- v. suffix + *-an infinitive suffix]

• Cañada: Chiefly Western U.S. a dry riverbed; a small, deep canyon. [1840–50;  < Spanish, equivalent to cañ ( a ) cane + -ada noun suffix]

• Arroyo: Chiefly southwest U.S. a small steep-sided watercourse or gulch with a nearly flat floor: usually dry except after heavy rains. [1800–10, Americanism ; < Spanish; akin to Latin arrūgia mine shaft]

• Rio: a river [Spanish rio, from L. rivus "brook, stream"]

How do most people seem to find this blog?

According to the Sitemeter tracker and the Blogger tracker, most people who come to my site find it by doing a search for "unit conversion" or "conversion table" or something similar. A number of years ago, I had written about a fun site that does unit conversions from standard units into more fun units. So, for example, you could know how far 500 miles was in units of "Great Walls of China" or you could find out how wide 5 feet in terms of CD cases, etc.

For some reason, though, out of the past 100 page views, Sitemeter shows that the page about unit conversions had 53 initial hits, with the next greatest being the archive page that has the entry about unit conversions at 31 initial hits. So, 84 out of the past 100 hits to my site have been related to unit conversions... Furthermore, according to the Blogger stats for the site, out of the 26,429 hits recorded since July 2009, 7177 of them have been to the unit conversions page (and over the past 24 hours, 123 of the ~300 hits have been to that page). This is kind of interesting, because there are definitely better sites that have to do with unit conversion, so why are people coming to this one? What is the logic behind Google putting my blog at a high enough level for people to click through to it so often?

Hmmm...

Brompton Folding bike race 2011

This looks quite fun!

A bit of video humor

A few years ago, I saw a video of a mime of Natalie Imbruglia's Torn:


Later, I saw some other mimes of songs done by Johann Lippowitz (aka David Armand). Recently, I found some more...




And a 14-minute compilation of his interpretive dances done for the Fast and Loose show on the BBC.


Two more. Human


Man in the Mirror

Evolution of... (in video)

The evolution of dance

 The evolution of rap  

 The evolution of computers

  

 The evolution of Final Fantasy chocobos  

 The evolution of Harry Potter  

 The evolution of the mobile phone (1985-2008)  

 The evolution of the TV (1920-2008)  

 The evolution of the car (1908-2008)  

 The evolution of the touchdown dance

Wait... Muslims aren't a monolithic group?

There's been some interest in a recent Gallup report from the Abu Dhabi Gallup organization that investigates the viewpoints of Americans on different topics, splitting them out based on stated religion. The survey also had questions about perceptions of Muslims, splitting these out also by stated religion. This report has been discussed at The Atlantic magazine, and it was nice to see many of the points that seemed so obvious to me when I was growing up in Japan and Taiwan with classmates who were Muslim.

I think that a lot of the reactions to these polling results are quite telling about stereotypes that people hold about other groups -- groups with whom they are not familiar. I grew up internationally, grew up with friends who were Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and (yes) Christian. These weren't people whose families were all about "killing the infidel" and "death to America." Indeed not. On the contrary, they were people who -- although some came from Iran -- intimately knew of the problems that their governments were responsible for (and that some of these were conducted in the name of Islam was also troubling).

However, there is -- I would argue -- no country in the Western world that is officially Christian that also uses Christianity to officially justify imprisonment, war, trade sanctions, etc. To that extent, many people in the West are very prone to making an incorrect association between the political stance of nations that are officially Islamic with the stance of people who practice Islam. For example, Great Britain is officially a Christian country -- the Church of England is the official state church -- but we don't perceive a Christian motivation to their military actions in the Falklands during the 1980s, in Kuwait in the 1990s and in Iraq in the 2000s. We don't point and say, "Look at that! Anglicanism is a war-like religion!" because we understand that there is a difference between the practitioners of it and its position as an official government religion. (Yes, I understand that Thatcher, Major, and Blair didn't invoke Anglicanism when going to war, but I would argue that it (A) is implied in any official action and (B) if doing so were politically expedient -- or politically uncostly -- they would likely have done so.) Even during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, most nationalists wouldn't have said that Anglicanism was a violent religion, being able to separate out the difference between the religion of many unionists and their political stance viz Northern Irish independence/merging with Ireland.

To people who say, "Well, if moderate Muslims feel this way about the use of force, etc., then they should be out in the streets protesting against the extremists," I would state two things: 1) many Muslims do speak out against violence that is advocated for by extremists, but they are not picked up in the media (for various reasons), and 2) most people -- regardless of their faith -- are just not that politically motivated to rally for action if they don't see any major benefit or impending disaster that affects them (just like the Troubles in Northern Ireland, where were the Anglicans and Catholics out on the streets, rallying for peace? They were there, but see, the previous point as to why most of us don't remember this point.) On this point, the Gallup report says:

That a significant minority of Americans doubt U.S. Muslims’ loyalty to their country seems to suggest they may expect Muslim Americans to somehow prove their loyalty. Similarly, members of the media and the public often ask why Muslim Americans do not speak out against terrorist attacks more often, as if their silence somehow condones such acts. Most major religious groups (including Muslims themselves) are split on this question, with about one-half in each faith group saying U.S. Muslims are obligated to speak out more than others, and one half saying they are not. If Americans of most faiths are split in their perception of Muslim Americans’ obligation to speak out against terrorism, they are not divided in their perception of whether Muslim Americans do so often enough. Most believe they do not. ... That compares with 72% of Muslim Americans, a mismatch suggesting U.S. Muslims have not found the right “bullhorns” to make themselves heard. It also reflects the frustration Muslim Americans often express that their repeated condemnations of terrorism seem to go unheard. (pp 35, 36)

Moving on to a point that wasn't discussed in the report: how -- for many items -- Muslim Americans and No Religion/Athiest/Agnostic Americans (which I will refer to as "Nones" from now on) were more similar to each other than other religious groups. (Yeah, yeah, I know: "Atheism" and "Non-believer" aren't religions, and calling them such falls under a functionalist definition of "religion", which carries with it its own set of problems, but I'm not going to address that here.) When one looked at many of the topics, the patterns were similar between the two groups:

• Nones were second only to Muslims when it came to a change in perception between George W Bush and Barack Obama (p 19);
• Muslims and Nones were less than 80% confident with the military (all the other groups were 91-97% satisfied) (p24);
• Muslims and Nones were less than 70% confident in the FBI (all the other groups were 75-79% satisfied) (p 24);
• Muslims and Nones are the youngest groups, average ages of 36 and 41, respectively (all other groups averaged 46-55) (p 26);
• Muslims, Jews, and Nones are more likely to cite the Iraq war as a mistake (67-83% compared to 32-49%) (p 27);
• Muslims and Nones are more likely to cite the Afghanistan war as a mistake (both at 47% compared to 22-29%) (p 27);
• Muslims and Nones are more likely to reject military violence against civilians always (79% and 58% compared to 33-43%) and sometimes (21% and 43% compared to 52-64%) (p30);
• Muslims, Nones, and Jews are more likely to believe that Muslims have no sympathy for Al Qaeda (92%, 75%, and 70% compared to 56-63%) (p 32);

Not surprisingly, there were some major differences between Nones and Muslims, especially when it came to questions of religion, religious tolerance, and religious identity. (Many of the questions didn't really seem to fit with the broad stances that many Nones seem to take, and so I don't really think that the comparisons are valid in this section of the report. Indeed, for many of the topics of religion and spirituality, the report drops the responses of the Nones.)

Finally, I am interested to see how much the responses among Muslims were influenced by prevailing sentiments of many Americans to Muslims, and whether -- if there is greater acceptance of Muslims over time (just like there has been a greater acceptance of Catholics over time) -- their attitudes on these questions will migrate closer to the other segments of American society.

Richer people spend more money on alcohol, but why is that interesting?

I saw this posted on the Daily Dish:

and I wanted to put in my tuppence: If you divide the amount spent on booze for each group by the groups median annual income, you’ll get a slightly more informative number:

• Less than HS: 0.88% of median annual income. 
• High School: 0.95% 
• Some College: 1.02% 
• Associates Degree: 1.03% 
• Bachelor Degree: 1.33% 
• Advanced Degree: 0.90%* 

Still, this doesn’t provide any information about the amount of alcohol drunk by the groups, the cost of the alcohol, nor the purpose of the purchases. However, it does add the wrinkle that advanced degree holders may* be acting differently than the rest of the trend.

There has been analysis on the alcohol drinking trends of various income groups before. To summarize (via Kevin Drum):

• Expenditures on beer double between the lowest and highest income quintiles. 
• Expenditures on wine quintuple. 
• Expenditures on "other" (mostly mixed drinks, I assume) also quintuple. 
• Expenditures on alcohol consumed at home go up 170% while expenditures on alcohol consumed elsewhere go up 600%.

Also, via James Joyner:

Increasing levels of education correlates with increased income and, presumably, more disposable income. As people attain more education and income, they’re likely to switch from cheap beer (Miller Lite) and cheap booze (Seagrams gin, Jim Beam bourbon) to better and more expensive beer (say, Dogfish Head 120) and booze (Bombay Sapphire gin, Macallan 12 Scotch). Also, they’ll drink wine that comes in bottles not boxes. Additionally, they’ll be more likely to drink at bars and pricey restaurants, thinking nothing of paying $6 for a pint of beer, $9 for a glass of wine, or $12 for a cocktail.

I personally feel that the initial graph provides an answer to the wrong question, because (as Kevin and James point out), there are several other things going on here; the graph doesn't show useful information from which we can draw useful (and predictive) conclusions about the behavior of any one group (other than  richer people spend more money on booze than poorer people). Looking at the percent of annual income is being spent on booze is a better way of starting to look at a meaningful analysis, and -- if we believe the numbers -- people who have a bachelor degree spend the most of the group (as a part of their annual pay), while people with less than a high school degree, and people with advanced degrees spend the least. Furthermore, while the actual amount of money spent by people with less than a high school degree is about  1/3 that of advanced degree holders, the fact that these two groups spend almost the same amount of money out of their paychecks on booze is interesting, and merely underscores (to me at least) the important recognition was summarized by Kevin: that what and where people drink is heavily related to their level of income.

* For the category of advanced degree, I took the average of the values listed for masters, doctorate, and professional.

Time lapse of one day in California

I love time-lapse films, and many of them have a sort of serene quality about them; gliding and elfin. Today, though, I present a time-lapse film that has a different feel: it looks a lot more like stop-motion animation using really high-quality models and miniatures. (The train and highway traffic starting at 0:45 really look like that to me. As do many other pieces there.) Perhaps this is because it's photos with a relatively more narrow frame of reference compared to most of the landscape-wide views. Perhaps, too, it's because the time lapse is shorter than in those vista-scapes; with photos being taken ~1/sec versus 1/min or more. Anyway, enjoy:

A Day in California from Ryan Killackey on Vimeo.

h/t: Daily Dish

Biting flies and purple loosestrife

The weather is perfect for all the biting flies that are buzzing around throughout the forest in the late afternoon. It makes maintenance annoyingly "piquant", and it makes me not actually want to do things outside, despite the lowered temperatures.

... and that's a bad thing, since I have noted several clumps of purple loosestrife around the lawn (near the lake) as well as in the wetland on the west side of the property. Without removing them, they will just take over the area in a few years, and -- as "lovely" as the flowers may seem to some -- their larger-picture problem (of taking over an area) far outweigh the "beauty" of their flowers. (In case it wasn't clear, I don't agree with the perception that they look nice. True, they look nicer than some other flowering plants, but they are -- to me -- far from pretty.)

Move, Eat, Learn

Although I doubt that it was done in response to Eat, Pray, Love, this series of three short films are incredible. From Rick Mereki's Vimeo page:

3 guys, 44 days, 11 countries, 18 flights, 38 thousand miles, an exploding volcano, 2 cameras and almost a terabyte of footage... all to turn 3 ambitious linear concepts based on movement, learning and food ....into 3 beautiful and hopefully compelling short films.....

= a trip of a lifetime.

MOVE:

MOVE from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

EAT:

EAT from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

LEARN:

LEARN from Rick Mereki on Vimeo.

(H/T: The Daily Dish)

In defense of teachers

I saw a clip of Matt Damon being interviewed by a free-market-will-save-the-world reporter about why job security should be based on a desire to make money (comparing her perception of Matt Damon's incentive to work hard as an film actor to the motivations that teachers "ought" to have). I saw that clip earlier today with very little context as to where it took place, and why he was being interviewed about teachers.

On tonight's "Last Word", Lawrence O'Donnell did a great segment in defense of teachers (and -- by extension -- public education).

Some of what I think were good excerpts:

I also hated and did badly in anything involving writing of any kind, which is kind of like wicked ironic, since I then grew up to be a writer. That just points to the unpredictable ways we learn things. I couldn't be taught writing in school, but later, as an adult on my own, I could somehow get the hang of it. None of the teachers who tried and failed to teach me how to write should be blamed for my failure as a writing student.

[Teachers] were told to take the blame for any disappointing academic achievement statistics in America. Republicans targeted teachers as soon as they saw teachers aligning themselves so often with the Democratic Party. Now, which party should the teachers' unions have seen as best representing their concerns? The party that wanted to cut taxes and cut spending on public schools, cut sports programs, cut arts education, cut the band, cut educational resources across the board so that we could then have even more tax cuts? Or the party that wanted to deliver to teachers the resources they need in the classroom and the resources that every school enedst o provide a full educational experience?

It has never occurred to the teacher haters that teachers want to be teachers for any reason other than job security. It has never occurred to them that teachers might want to be teachers because they like teaching, because they love teaching, and because they care about their students.

Watch the whole segment (10 min 29 sec):

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Language, dog-whistles, and extremism

I often read the blog entries over at Dispatches from the Culture Wars each day. Ed usually posts four or five short posts in the morning, and I almost always find the posts interesting, and I enjoy reading (and sometimes contributing to) the commentary; the other commentators there are (usually) civil enough.

There was one entry today -- "Those Scary Muslim Words" -- that was one of those posts that really made me want to post a reply... and upon greater reflection, to cross-post it here.

Ed quoted from a story from the NYTimes about people in the Phoenix, AZ area who didn't like the fact that the massive sand and dust storms that had hit them twice this year had an Arabic name: "haboob". Never mind that the Arabic words are not Muslim words, but some people were making that conflation, and going to extreme lengths of politically charged language to try and pressure someone (I don't know who) to change the use of the word (much like the silly change of name from "french fries" to "freedom fries" on the Congressional cafeteria menus way back in 2002):

"I am insulted that local TV news crews are now calling this kind of storm a haboob," Don Yonts, a resident of Gilbert, Ariz., wrote to The Arizona Republic after a particularly fierce, mile-high dust storm swept through the state on July 5. "How do they think our soldiers feel coming back to Arizona and hearing some Middle Eastern term?"

Many of the commentators did -- admittedly -- focus on this comment, showing how much of a boob Don Yonts was with regard to the haboob. Many extended the comment that Ed made in his blog:

As Adam Serwer points out, there are lots of words we use every day that are rooted in Arabic words: sofa, admiral, magazine, mattress and many more. And for God's sake, don't let grandma knit any more afghans. Those poor soldiers will be so offended!

To this, I just had to also throw in my attempt at showing how silly such reasons for not using a particular word were. If "haboob" was just too much of a "Middle Eastern term", then why not try to expunge other words from Arabic? My comment tried to highlight the extent to which Arabic words already exist quite commonly within the English language, even though England wasn't overrun by Muslim hordes during the Crusades:

Well, I suppose we ought to get rid of all those loanwords from Arabic. 

I mean, we can't have soldiers, sailors, generals or admirals getting into their alcohol (especially apricot schnapps or mint juleps). I mean, the haboob has also affected farmers' alfalfa, artichokes, Pima cotton, lemons, limes, spinach, tangerines and oranges, and so referring to it using such a vulgar word could make them feel even worse. The dust could also have infiltrated jars of coffee, jasmine, sugar and other foodstuffs (and your candy, too), and no one appreciates gritty foods.

I mean, the word is almost just a garble of sounds that you can't barely decipher! I have zero tolerance for this sort of a racket. This will end up being an albatross around the necks of our poppinjay leaders! Throw down your magazines! Get off your sofas! Get off your mattresses! March out of your alcoves and your adobe colored houses! This is checkmate!

I don't always find Jack Black that funny.

For example, while I liked School of Rock, I don't like Tenacious D:

The Marriage of Figaro (with drum kit!)

This piece is one of my earliest memories of classical music:

The Marriage of Figaro: I fell in love with it an an early age; the sounds are so emotive, the composition just so perfect to my ear. I cannot say how much I love this piece.

And now I love it even more:

Blogging reactions to Rush Limbaugh's theory of global warming as I listen to it for the first time

"I have a theory on global warming," he announced. "I have a theory about why people think it's real."

Oh, really, I thought to myself. This ought to be rich, coming from a shock-jock who has proven -- time and again -- to be a global-warming denier. What, exactly is your "theory" then?

"Go back... thirty, forty years."

Uh, huh....


"When there was much less air conditioning... in the country."

Ooooh, boy. This is going to be balls-out nuts, isn't it? This is going to turn into a "it's all in your mind, so it's not real" sort of an argument, isn't it? Is that why he's taking so many breaks and talking so slowly? Is his hesitation an indication that he's making this up as he goes on; that he didn't really have a theory before he said that he had a theory?


"When you didn't have air conditioning, and you left the house... *snort* It may, in fact, have gotten a little COOLER out there. Because sometimes houses become hot boxes.... 'Specially if you're on the second or third floor of a house in the summer time and all you've got is open windows and maybe a window fan, or you have some SERVANT standing there, fanning you with a piece of paper."

"Piece of paper"?!? If I had a servant, I thought, I'd be wanting to be fanned by something other than a mere piece of paper. Hell, even the internal logic of this construct is ludicrous.


"When you walked outside... no big deal: it's still hot as hell."

When did you describe it being "hot as hell" outside? I thought that you said that it would be hotter inside. Or are you saying that inside is just a hotter part of hell than outside? Where's the consistency in your theory?


"Now, thirty, forty years later: all this air conditioning... And it's a HUGE difference when you go outside. When you go outside now, my GOLLY is it hot. Whooo..."

Oh, so it is all in my head? Funny: I don't have an air conditioner in my house, and it's still hot outside. In fact, it's as hot outside when I leave my non-air-conditioned home as it is when I leave my air-conditioned office. And it doesn't really feel hotter when I leave my office as compared to when I leave my home: 90F and humid feels equally hot to me. So... maybe this guy's got something strange with his senses?


"GLOBAL WARMING! ... It's all about the baseline you're using for comparison.."

Well, yes, he's right on this one thing. Taken out of context from everything else. And if you know what the term "baseline" means in the context of global warming science. And you know how to use it. And you know how to compare. And you know how to interpret your results. And if you were to read the statement without the whining sarcasm that spills from his mouth.

Naming children with numbers

As part of the cultural gulf between the US and Japan -- something that is topical for today's Women's FIFA World Cup final between the US and Japan -- I present the following clip about what baby names Rosie Pope likes and dislikes:

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Now, I know that Rosie Pope probably isn't an American (her accent sounds British), but the point is that when it came to using numbers as names, both she and the interviewer were negative to the idea of using numbers as a name (indeed, the interviewer didn't even know that people did this). While I don't know how common the practice is anymore in Japan, the use of a number in the name was not uncommon historically. Indeed, the high school principal of my school in Tokyo had the given name "Saburo" (三郎), which literally means "third son." Also, the name "Ichizō" (一三) literally means "one three": a number (and also the name of one of my uncles).

Okay, okay, okay, the naming conventions of Japan shouldn't be at the forefront of white Americans (and Brits), but in a world where Americans are naming their children after fruit (like Apple), natural features (James Mountain Inhofe), etc., the idea that someone might name their child after a number -- even in English -- shouldn't be too surprising.

Linked through "NetworkedBlogs"

If this all works out, then I will have connected this blog with my Facebook and Twitter feeds. We'll see how that works, though.

The "need" for connecting various communication platforms is something that -- in a multi-platform world of greater communication (but perhaps diminished actual contact) -- is becoming increasingly necessary (well, if you've hooked in already). Thus, the wonder of tools like "Tweet Deck" that you can either install on your computer, or use as an app in Google Chrome. And the Android device that can query your Gmail account, your Facebook account, and even your Skype account to pull in different contact details for your friends, family, colleagues, etc.

Of course, with this increased connectivity between communication resources, a part of me wonders about the amount of privacy that I'm giving up. For example, now that this is connected to Facebook even more obviously (other than a link to the blog on my "info" page), what is the benefit of using a pseudonym? Also, what amount of information am I sharing anyway? Should I start up a blog with my real name or just keep on trucking with this one, since my online identity is it's own thing anyway.

In the end, I believe that the increased number of platforms that are hooked into communications will only work if people either all buy in to one or another platform or if platform-linking services like NetworkedBlogs and TweetDeck help take up the slack for people who don't have the time or intent to get onto every single social networking and communication tech and app that comes online. Of course, a possible trade-off is privacy, but I'm not one that is in a good position to determine the exact degree of this trade-off. Therefore, like someone hoping for herd-protection, I march onward, partially hoping that -- if privacy concerns occur -- breaches occur to someone else and not to me, perhaps conveniently forgetting that privacy information "predation" is less like lions attacking a herd of wildebeest (i.e., only one gets pulled from the herd), but more like drag-net fishing (i.e., it's a technologically driven, targeted, mass capture).

Six days, 102 miles.

Okay, so it's not a century in the true sense (i.e., 100 miles in one day). However, my bike ain't a road bike, so with a relatively heavy bike, I think that it's pretty good (especially if I'm working during the day, and all the miles are commuting miles).

Basic stats:

• Distance: 101.68 miles
• Time: 7.35 hours.
• Average speed: 13.83 mph

I'd say that it's not too shabby.